


starry heavens

by jonphaedrus



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/M, Gen, More characters to come, Tales of Symphonia Re-Release challenge, so many more tags to come.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:32:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a fic a day for 25 days to celebrate the anniversary and re-release of tos as symphonia chronicles. completion: 14|25</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. marble: underground

**Author's Note:**

> day 1: marble, to the prompt _underground_
> 
> marble is such an important character to the plot of tos, even if she has very little screentime in the entire game. her death is a lot of what motivated genis into growing up, and her death and the guilt it caused lloyd made a huge difference in his actions through the game. there's no doubt in my mind if marble and genis had not met when they did, much of the game would have gone very differently. im always sad we didn't get to know more about her.

It was her, or her granddaughter, with her wide eyes and soft hands, and Marble had turned herself in willingly. Let her children have a life of their own, she had already lived so long, it was best that she take their place. She had nothing to gain from the open sky and her hands baking bread, when her knuckles were too swollen to compact to knead like they used to.

She was the only person over fifty in the camp that they took her from, an aged, wizened woman. The Grand Cardinal who ran it looked at her, sniffed, sneered, and told her she was useless for everything but the most menial work. She couldn’t build, couldn’t do physical labour, so instead, she cooked and cleaned until her hands were swollen and red and her back stuck, cricked at night.

But they let her go outside, and she would look out over the trees and watch the clouds in the sky, and that was enough. She could imagine the seasons passing over the two years they kept her locked up, imagine her Chocolat growing up, stronger, smarter, starting to run the store on her own. Marble would never see her again. She would age and die inside the fences, trapped, a bird in a cage.

And one day, there came a young man, with silver hair. And then his friend, with hair the same colour as Chocolat’s.

And then afterwards, they buried her wrecked, ravaged body by the side of the road, little Genis with his weak arms and shaking hands, unable to even look at her cooling remains, and Lloyd with his hard eyes and squared jaw and so much anger that he kept lying to himself wasn’t haunting his footsteps, and they left her a mound with a stone, a marker, a spot.


	2. corrine: sing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 2: corrine, to the prompt _sing >_
> 
>  
> 
> _i really wish we could have known more of corrine and sheena's backstory. their love for each other is a powerful part of the game, and corrine's death scene is something that gets me every single time i see it. he would do anything for her, and did. it matters so much that theyre able to be reunited anyway, given back to each other for a second chance with verius. his love for her definitely had a big impact on who sheena grew up to be._
> 
>  
> 
> _because im an asshole and i hate myself, i wrote this chapter to[this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qBbLyRixg)_

When they handed him over, a quiet, whimpering, shaking ball, he stared up at the girl with the wide eyes that called out pain, and he shied away from her. They had burned him so many times, told him _this time will be different_ , that he didn’t trust it. 

But she held him in her arms, warmed him by her chest, and played with him. She never laughed, but she listened, and they ran together in the sunlight. Sometimes, he would try and grow big to let her ride on his back, but never very far. It was too tiring. He was too tired, too weak, to exhausted to do more than a little.

She started to laugh and smile, his Sheena. She would tuck him close to her under the blankets at night, and tell him stories. When she cried, he would try to dry her tears on his fur. He would sit with her when she looked through the curtains at her Grandfather’s still and broken body, and he would rub against her legs and arms, like he could fix it. He would croon to her, sing to her, lullabies for her nightmares, for her broken heart and her heavy, clumsy fingers.

When she believed in him, he could do so much.

They tried to take him back, eventually. They tried to rip him away from her. _It isn’t working,_ they said. _He isn’t doing what he’s supposed to._ He wasn’t turning into what they wanted him to. He was too small, too weak, too kind. He wasn’t what he had been created for. 

His Sheena hadn’t given him back. She had taken him, run away, and he had tried to grow big, but he was too weak, too tired, to grow big. She would run, and they would rest, and she would carry him, unafraid of anything as long as they were together.

She was all the bravery he could not be, all the helpless fear he had bottled up inside, all the scars they had carved into him when he _wasn’t good enough._

They would hide together, when they were back in her village. Like nothing could hurt them as long as they were with each other. 

He would go with her anywhere, even across the worlds, even to do something he didn’t understand or condone. She was His Sheena, and he would stay with her no matter what.

 _No matter what,_ when it happened all over again, the reason she had come to him in the first place. Volt, all anger and hatred and fear, didn’t want her. He did.

She held his broken, shaking little body, and cried into his fur, just like he’d always wanted her to be able to do. He felt so big on the inside, even if he wasn’t on the outside. She held him close, and tried to sing the songs he’d sung her to sleep with, until he was cold and tired.

She was His Sheena, and he would go with her wherever she went, because she loved him, with her scared little eyes and her shaking little fingers. Even if it meant going onward into the darkness first, alone.


	3. dirk: needle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 3: dirk, to the prompt _needle_
> 
> the fact that, no matter what happens, lloyd always sees dirk as his dad is one of the few extremely close parent/child relationships in the tales series, even if dirk did adopt him. no matter how far lloyd goes from home, he can and does go back because dirk is there waiting there, ready to take care of him, loving him no matter what. in a game series where neglectful or dead parents are the norm, its very refreshing to see a boy and his father who are close and care about each other, even as they both grow up.
> 
> note: this chapter does have some squicky bits about stitches, so if that isnt your thing, just thought i'd put a warning.

Lloyd comes to him, three years old and crying, all covered in blood, with nothing to wear after Dirk throws away his ruined, wasted clothes.

So he pulls out a needle, and takes in his old shirts for a little human boy to wear.

When Lloyd is six, he trips badly down a hill, and rips his leg open. He cries and cries while Dirk pulls the needle out and has to put in six stitches to close up his leg, but afterward his eyes are bright and happy and he smiles and smiles, his front teeth gone from his fall, and he hardly notices his stitches, except where there’s a new seam in his pants.

When Lloyd is nine, he drops his sword on his foot. He does not cry this time, not like when he was younger, but holds very still while Dirk stitches the gash closed, gentle, and he takes it easy for a few days after that.

He’s so tall now that Dirk’s castoff old clothes no longer fit him, and he realises, belatedly, that this little human boy who calls him _Dad_ and is now taller than Dirk will ever grow should go to school, so the next day when Lloyd is out exploring the forest with Noishe, he goes down to Iselia for the first time in thirty years, and buys bolts of red cloth (because red is, has always been, Lloyd’s favourite) and enrols him in the little one room schoolhouse with only two other students. He’s behind, but not by much, and every day he walks from their cabin in the woods to go to school, but he smiles and plays with his friends, and that’s good enough for Dirk.

When Lloyd is twelve, he grows so quickly that Dirk has to just give up on his old clothes and make new ones all over again, pulling out his needle, sew, sew, sew. He darns socks Lloyd wears through running about all day in boots half a size too large, and then running about in boots half a size too small.

One day, Lloyd leaves. He is seventeen, and has people to save, and places to go. He doesn’t need Dirk and his needle any more.

And then one day he comes back, with another man that he refuses to call father, and a project he needs made, and a hole in his shirt—

And Dirk takes out his needle.


	4. kate: magnifying glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 4: kate, to the prompt _magnifying glass_
> 
> i hate to admit that its actually been so long since ive done symphonia sidequests as a whole (probably fiveish years, give or take) that i dont remember all the details of what happens to kate after the main portion she has of the plotline.
> 
> i always felt really bad for her. her actions were all, ultimately, simply because she loved her father, and in the end, he never showed any love back to her. it strikes me that she could have been a kind and good person except for her circumstances, and i've always felt sympathy—nobody likes being shut away in the dark.

They weren’t any different, deep down inside. She knew. She had seen them.

When you looked close enough, they were all the same. Almost all the differences were superficial—except for one.

The one where, as her father grew older, she would always remain eternally twenty-something on the outside. His hair would go grey, his fingers and hands would wrinkle and shake, and he would eventually die, long before she ever learned what it meant to even reach middle age. She would just stay the same.

But they were the same, on the inside.

How hard was it, she wondered, to just forget the outside and look only at the inside? If she hid her ears, if she lied about her age, she wasn’t any different from anyone else. She didn’t need to use magic, when she had science.

But they still locked her in a low, dark room, deep underground, and lied about her. Her father never visited, washed his hands of his shame. She would never see him grow old. He had never planned for her to.

How different was it really, then, to look at someone who looked at her like dirt, and to agree with whatever they wanted for only a _little bit more?_ For a chance to see the sun, once a year. For the chance to read a book on her own time. Maybe, even, for the chance to see her father.

They brought her the girl, and she spoke about her father as Kate put the jewel into her chest.

She stopped speaking about him, after.


	5. alicia: hourglass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 5: alicia, to the prompt _hourglass_
> 
>  
> 
> i wish we had found out more about alicia in canon. fanon speculation and comics and all sorts of things have sort of filled up that hole, though. she and regal have such a sad love story—i sometimes wonder what their lives might have been if everything hadn't gone so horrible wrong. on the other hand, i love that her eventual final death echoes strongly what ends up happening to mithos later in the game. it's a heavy message to try to get across, that sometimes the best release for someone is to let them eventually go to their death, but it's a decision that is made multiple times in tos—and for alicia, it was definitely what she wanted.
> 
> i havent played dotnw, but im looking forward to playing it and seeing how presea and regal react to each other more over alicia in that game. i'm hopeful that they'll finally start to reconcile to each other more than they did during tos, because alicia loved them both and i know she'd want to see them understand each other.

When she was eighteen, her sands ran out. They just stopped, cut short. Like someone had put a cork in her hourglass.

They stopped, and there they stayed. And things stayed with them—things like her gravestone, made by a man who felt regret, regret because he’d tried to get rid of her before she caused trouble, only to cause more trouble for everyone. For her sister, pulling an axe, and tending to her father’s corpse in his bed. For her lover, locked alone in a jail cell, counting the years until he could die.

The sand all stopped, and she stayed where she was. An after-image, projected by a goddess artefact that had given her nothing but grief.

Alicia wondered if anybody had ever been given anything but grief for it.

She watched, and listened. Heard lovers come to her garden during nights snuck away from the casino, and envied them their chances at love among the flowers, but at the same time, wished them nothing but well—there were so few chances in life, that it was best if they could all have them and share them while they could. She watched people mourn at her grave—a grave for so many who had lost their lives to the same thing she had, and wished she could touch them, reach for them, as more than a ghost or a whisper. She watched the seasons turn and the days pass with the arc of the sun overhead.

And eventually, the sand started falling again. 

Her sister buried her father, eight years too late. The man who had sent her to die tried, tried and tried, to atone for what he had done—and he in her eyes earned her forgiveness. The man who had killed her met a fate no less fair than her own.

Her lover let her go free, and set himself free as well.

Her sand stayed where it was, and a boy in a red suit, no older than she had been when her sands stopped, broke the hourglass, and at last, at last—she was free.


	6. seles: a definite "perhaps"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 6: seles, to the prompt _a definite "perhaps"_
> 
> seles and zelos have such a sad story together. i have no idea what happens in dotnw, but i really hope theyre able to care more about each other overtly. seles suffered so much for no good reason, but the fact that she still loves zelos and he still loves her at the end of the day is just. god. i want them to be able to be there for each other in the sequel can they please just have happiness together.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Seles said, matter-of-factly, when her brother showed up at the Abbey, bruised, battered, tired, but alive.

“Neither did I,” said her brother. He hesitated, and then reached his hand out for her. She reached out and took his back. She hesitated. She paused. She looked up at him, at his quiet, sad eyes.

“I’m glad you did.” 

That was that.


	7. tabatha: strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 7: tabatha, to the prompt _strings_
> 
> i've always wondered what mithos really thought about tabatha, and what she really thought about him—and all the things she watched. we're told over and over again that she was an empty vessel with no self-reliance made simply to hold martel, but through the game we see how much she cares about altessa, how she feels sadness for mithos betraying her after he showed her kindness, and her own initiative to save the soul of martel/the great tree.
> 
> i didnt do the tabatha toize valley mine sidequest until one of the last time i played the original tos, but it's probably my favourite sidequest in the game. she's a sweet, kind character who has suffered a lot for others, but i feel like her big heart and kind soul shouldn't be overlooked. (im really hoping she as martel is in dotnw)

She was a puppet, all joints and strings, tied together and held up by machinery and ingenuity, and she had no soul.

That was the way she was programmed. She had an intelligence, deep in her head, that had thoughts and ideas, and convinced her to speak words, and worried about her Creator, but she had no soul. She had been meant to hold one, not have one.

Yggdrasil had called her _broken_ and _defective_ but she had thought, privately, to herself, with the little voice she knew she wasn’t supposed to have, that she was neither. She had had a soul, for a very short time. Her name had been Martel, and she had been perfectly compatible. She simply had not wanted to stay, and Tabatha had been able to let her go. The person who was broken, she thought, was Yggdrasil.

You were meant to ask people what they wanted, and then do that. Had he never asked Martel what she wanted? She was right there, she could hear him. He should have given her more credit than he did.

So she was sent away, the little puppet of strings and mechanics, who had no soul, but had something similar. Thoughts were almost a soul. Ideas were almost a soul.

He had been wrong, she knew. His mocking _defective_ and _broken_ were wrong. Both about her, and about him, the little boy with the big heart and the scared eyes, praying for his sister to come home. 

There was all that and more, once you were inside the Great Tree.


	8. anna: all your life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 8: anna, to the prompt _all your life_
> 
> i grouped anna with the minor characters simply because she never actually outright appears in the game, not even in flashbacks, but annas importance to the plot cannot possibly be understated—and the affect she had on kratos changed him completely. although the game never outright states it, it's implied that he was still nominally following mithos before he met her, and her death had a profound and permanent change on him.
> 
> kratos' locket remains upsetting. fuck kratos' locket.

Dying doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the pain in Kratos’ eyes. There’s always been pain in Kratos’ eyes, ever since they met. She thought she might be able to fix it. Not quite, not quite.

It’s not so bad, though. She can’t speak to thank Dirk for putting her in her son’s hand, but she thanks him anyway. She can’t interact with him, bodiless and soulless and dead and equipped as she is, but she can watch. She can feel her son grow, she can experience him train, become strong, become fast. She can hear everything he says, see everything he does.

He reminds her of his father.

Perhaps, when he pulls her free from his hand and hands her to him, to the love of her life, she regrets never being able to see him grow old, to watch his hair streak with grey, just like she watched him learn to wield his swords.

Instead, she will stay with her husband, who will never die. Instead, he will waste slowly away on an empty, cold, barren planet that has nothing to grant him but his own thoughts. 

She will remain with him forever, and this is a gift that she does not regret being given, even at the cost of her life.


	9. magnius: fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 9: magnius, to the prompt _fox_
> 
> magnius screaming vermin will literally always remain hilarious to me no matter how much time passes. just the way he does it is really funny, and the fact that they made it even more dumb in the anime just makes it even better.
> 
> i will admit that considering i havent played the palmacosta first path since probably the third or fourth time i played the game going to deal with magnius later kind of removes some of his power, since you've dealt with kvar by that point and he's 10x more freaky and not okay, but he remains a real wake-up call in the game, since hes so much more fanatical than forcystus.

_He should have known better._ Vermin are weak, crawling, snivelling, cruel, cowardly creatures. Nothing more than dirt on the soles of his boots. _He should have known better._ They were sneaky, they were tricky. They did cruel, unfair things. _He should have known better._

Two of them had pointed ears and magic, just like him.

One of them was an Angel. 

_He should have known better._


	10. kvar: unexpected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 10: kvar, to the prompt _unexpected_
> 
> kvar is such a douche, but i find that i do really like his character. every other grand cardinal has their own motivations, but i feel like (other than forcystus) kvar's are the best shown through the course of the game. he's selfish, but in an extremely cruel and simple way. he's after something he logically knows he'll likely never get, but its not really the prize he's looking for. it's the destroying lives in the way to get there that he really cares about.
> 
> kvar is a sick dude and his death scene is still one of my favs in any tales game.

He prides himself on being smart—so smart, too smart, that nothing gets past him. Rodyle might think himself the brains in the Cardinals, but everyone knows the real powerhouse is Kvar.

He never recognised Kratos Aurion of Cruxis, in his white uniform with his flaming sword and his glowing blue wings, in the human with the sad eyes and the haggard cheeks.

The last thing that Kvar thinks before Kratos Aurion (Seraphim of Cruxis, Saviour of the Great Kharlan War, husband of Anna Aurion) runs him through is _stupidity._

_He should have known better._


	11. forcystus: recruitment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 1: forcystus, to the prompt _recruitment_
> 
> i know it's been proven wrong at this point but i still abide by and love the headcanon that forcystus was one of spiritua's companions. it's so sad—it really is. even if you don't use that, he suffered so much for no good reason, he suffered as a hero and he suffered as a villain, and he—like kratos and yuan—is just another person to suffer from what mithos did for them.
> 
> he's probably, in some ways, the best antihero in the game—because he never becomes a hero. he always remains a villain.

What use is a hero after they’ve grown stale?

Maybe Spiritua would have known, but he led her to her death and her failed soul with his own two hands, and he would never be able to ask her again. She might’ve known what you do with a hero that’s grown stale.

You take an arm, first. Then you take an eye. You let a mad scientist with eyes like bright gems see what he can do with the missing parts. You let them go to seed, you let them rot to ruin. Old heroes don’t need to be helped out. Old heroes don’t need a smile or a thank you for all the things they’ve done.

You bury them in their old glory, and you ignore them.

Is it so bad, for him to grow cruel and vicious in his old age? Is it so bad, for him to want others to lose their beloved Chosen, the same way he lost his? 

When he fires his canon and the girl with her long blonde hair and her big empty blue eyes runs between him and his target, so much like his Spiritua, he wishes he could take the shot back, he wishes he could apologise to the dead bodies that he’s left empty in his wake, he wishes that there was something else for stale heroes aside from villainy.

_He should have known better._


	12. rodyle: endless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 1: rodyle, to the prompt _endless_
> 
> i hate rodyle im not even going to lie. there's something far more sleazy and detestable about him than there is for magnius and kvar, and i think it's because his motivations are actually never really explained fully—because they dont matter. he's a cruel, selfish person and he's in it entirely for himself and this is never in doubt. he's such a shitty person and he doesn't get redeemed in any way, because he doesn't deserve it. his drowning of the people in the remote island human ranch and botta's following death are all cruel acts by a cruel man.
> 
> on the other hand "take me to he—" and "im taking you aaAAaaaaAaAaAAaaAAAAAaAallllll with me!!!" are my two favourite lines to mock in the game, so he at least gave us that, and im looking forward to hearing them in glorious hd—and to killing the bastard all over again because lbrh this guy is a shitstain.

He’s been waiting for a very, very long time. So long. Decades, centuries. Nearly a millennia.

He’s very good at waiting. He’s good at biding his time, keeping his control, being patient, and waiting. He knows eventually that he will get what he wants. It’s all just a matter of _waiting._ Eventually, Pronyma will fail and fall out of their Lord’s good graces. Eventually, Kvar’s actions will catch up with him. Eventually, Magnius will hurt too many people without logic, and the revenge will be significant and fast. Eventually, Forcystus is going to give into his guilt.

Rodyle isn’t in any good graces, he’s simply too good to kill. He’s been too smart in his life to anger a Seraph. He keeps himself in the middle of the ocean, where nobody can come and kill him. He doesn’t feel any guilt.

Carefully, so carefully. One by one, they’ll drop like dominoes, and he’ll remain at the top of the pile, given everything that he could have ever wished for. Not fame, not fortune no. _Immortality._

There is no immortality to be had when he tries to harness the power of an Exsphere to its full extent. There is no immortality in drowning. There is no immortality in a boy with burning eyes and two flashing swords, punishing him for drowned victims who had never been meant for anything else.

_He should have known better._


	13. pronyma: messenger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 1: pronyma, to the prompt _messenger_
> 
> years ago, there was a theory on the tales of forums that pronyma was spiritua. this remains one of my favourite theories about tos, and i would have written about it, but its agreement is a lot less than the forcystus was a friend of spiritua's.
> 
> i always felt kind of bad for pronyma. she loved mithos, and continued to love and support him even when she knew he would give her nothing and no kindness. she suffered for him—a lot. i always wanted to know who she really was, before, where she came from.
> 
> also, her bossfights are some of my favourites in the game. i remain sad to this day that in symphonia we dont get a dark make of our own because leonazium and agarazium and blood rain are all AMAZINGLY cool attacks. she's such an interesting character with hidden facets that just. she's definitely my favourite grand cardinal, by FAR.

He loves nobody but his sister’s dead body floating in space, but she wants to believe that he loves her. He’s never shown it, but he is kind to her, kinder than he is to anyone, even Lords Kratos and Yuan. That must mean he loves her. Doesn’t it?

She is his messenger. Lord Yuan hates to carry out orders, so he is not given orders. Lord Kratos is taciturn and cold—he’s meant for death and ruin, not for messages.

So she carries them for him. She sends messages for her Lord, does whatever he will wish. He thanks her for it, with his cold voice and empty eyes, but he sometimes smiles. That means love, doesn’t it? It must, it must, for he never smiles at anyone else.

Once, she wears a dress, and he calls her Martel. He flushes in anger after she is startled, and she does not see him for fifty years. He does not answer her calls, he does not leave his rooms. He suffers, he sulks. Perhaps it is her hair, green, a curse. She puts it in a bun, and never wears a dress again. She wants him to love her, but never like he loved Martel.

Perhaps she saw something where it wasn’t, in his preference of her above all the other Cardinals, before and after her. Perhaps she had hoped for too much, for him to love her, with his cold empty eyes and his four thousand years of anguish, for the one time she hopes he does love her, for the one time she calls his name that she has whispered to herself during the long-sleepless nights of her existence, she sees only anger in his eyes and his twisted, boyish face, and she never has a chance to apologise for her mistakes, for believing in something that never could have existed for someone like her.

_She should have known better._


	14. regal: progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 14: regal, to the prompt progress
> 
> (not quite day 14, more like, day 14 in spirit, but whatever.)
> 
> regal's character arc is very different from the rest of the cast. he joins last; he has the least action as a player in the story. he comes from a place of genuine privilege; the only one among his number to do so, and thinks of things in that privileged way (zelos doesnt count.) he has a perspective that sets him at odds to his friends, and this often comes up. he is performing the role of a felon by his own choice, he is using his power as a privileged man in society to help others.
> 
> there's an overarching message in tos that what life gives to you is what you make of it, and regal has been dealt the perfect starter hand and has, of his own choice and volition, handed each card back at one time or another. rather than create a hand for himself, the ideal world of his own making, he has refused to play by the rules of others, and stand up for what is only fair.

_Progress_ , a step forward, open a door formerly barred, give access to a future unobtainable. _Progress_ is the name of the thing which has stymied him more times than he can count. Once upon a time, he took his progress and he _closed the door_.

The finality of jail bars clicked shut, and he turned inward, for good. There was no progress to be had in death. There was no progress to be had when something deep inside him had shrivelled up and died when he watched blood paint his hands. Her sands had come to a halt, frozen, suspended, locked in stasis.

So had he.

Wasn’t that fair? _Wasn’t that fair?_

But to be human is to progress. To be mortal is to progress.

No intertia is forever.

He gathers up the shards and dust that remain of the stone that stole her from him, and holds them like they have some kind of an answer, and opens the barred door, takes the step forward. He turns his hourglass; he starts anew.

He carries her close to his breast, he finds progress she would be proud of, and that is little—but it is enough.


End file.
